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VEGETARIAN DIET: SCIENTIFIC VIEWS Suresh Jain
Humans like other living organisms require proper food for growth and various activities of life. Being a supreme creature in living kingdom, he has exploited several resources for his food and for other purposes without proper scientific and religious considerations. This unreasonable exploitation has led to a serious food shortage in the present day world.
Food is necessary for proper growth and to maintain various activities of life. All the materials like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins and water are taken by us from the environment. The desired proportion of these materials form a balanced diet' and must contain about 450 g. carbohydrates, 60 g. proteins, 50 g. fats and materials with minerals, vitamins, etc. for proper growth and health in the diet of an adult human.
It has been estimated by FAO that food production can be increased upto 20 times and can easily cope with the increasing population on this earth. The annual increase in food production is only 2.7% whereas the demand by the increasing population is growing by 2.9%. This has led to a serious food problem and about 20% of the world's population is living under absolute poverty at present. This situation persists despite the applications of various scientific and technological developments. The food problem is also related to the non availability of nutritious food, ignorance about the nutritious values of food and acceptance of undesirable practices and fallacies about some food items.
The environmental hazards due to uncontrolled technological developments and large increases in consumption of animal proteins in recent decades are also responsible for this ever increasing food problem to a great extent. It has been observed that about 70,000 km useful land goes out of production annually due to desertification, threatening the life of about 50 million people. Tropical forests are destroyed at the rate of about 1.3 million hectares per annum in Africa alone. About 33% of the total world's cereal output is used as animal food to get animal protein. About 5-20 kilos of vegetable protein go to produce one kilo of animal protein. Thus a check on the consumption of animal proteins can solve the present day food
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